Zora Neale Quotes & Sayings

You switches a mean fanny round in a kitchen. — Zora Neale Hurston

My head was full of misty fumes of doubt. — Zora Neale Hurston

Janie starched and ironed her face and came set in the funeral behind her veil. It was like a wall of stone and steel. The funeral was going on outside. All things concerning death and burial were said and done. Finish. End. Never-more. Darkness. Deep hole. Dissolution. Eternity. Weeping and wailing outside. Inside the expensive black folds were resurrection and life. — Zora Neale Hurston

We must learn to be honest with ourselves, and know our shortcomings. We will acquire cohesion but we will pay dearly for being a slow pupil. — Zora Neale Hurston

Husbands and wives always loved each other, and that was what marriage meant. It was just so. Janie felt glad of the thought, for then it wouldn't seem so destructive and mouldy. She wouldn't be lonely anymore. — Zora Neale Hurston

Then you must tell them that love isn't something like a grindstone that's the same thing everywhere and do the same thing to everything it touches. Love is like the sea. It is a moving thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from the shore it meets, and its different with every shore. (written properly and not in slang) — Zora Neale Hurston

She must talk to a man who was ten immensities away. — Zora Neale Hurston

she constantly shifts back and forth between her "literate" narrator's voice and a highly idiomatic black voice — Zora Neale Hurston

She had learned how to talk some and leave some. She was a rut in the road. Plenty of life beneath the surface but it was kept beaten down by the wheels. Sometimes she stuck out into the future, imagining her life different from what it was. But mostly she lived between her hat and her heels, with her emotional disturbances like shade patterns in the woods
come and gone with the sun. She got nothing from Jody except what money could buy, and she was giving away what she didn't value. — Zora Neale Hurston

Ah done lived Grandma's way, now Ah means tuh live mine. — Zora Neale Hurston

I have been in Sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and sword in my hands. — Zora Neale Hurston

It was the meanest moment of eternity. — Zora Neale Hurston

Africa has her mouth on Moses. — Zora Neale Hurston

Uh woman by herself is uh pitiful thing, she was told over and again. — Zora Neale Hurston

Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the same horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men. Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly. — Zora Neale Hurston

Work is the nearest thing to happiness that I can find. — Zora Neale Hurston

No matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you. — Zora Neale Hurston

A little seed of fear was growing into a tree. — Zora Neale Hurston

Besides she liked being lonesome for a change. This freedom feeling was fine. These men didn't represent a thing she wanted to know about. — Zora Neale Hurston

Common danger made common friends. Nothing sought a conquest over the other. — Zora Neale Hurston

If you kin see de light at daybreak, you don't keer if you die at dusk. It's so many people never seen de light at all. — Zora Neale Hurston

It is hard to apply oneself to study when there is no money to pay for food and lodging. I almost never explain these things when folks are asking me why I don't do this or that. — Zora Neale Hurston

Ah done been tuh de horizon and back and now Ah kin set heah in mah house and live by comparisons. — Zora Neale Hurston

The morning road air was like a new dress. That made her feel the apron tied around her waist. She untied it and flung it on a low bush beside the road and walked on, — Zora Neale Hurston

Friendship is a mysterious and ocean-bottom thing. Who can know the outer ranges of it? Perhaps no human being has ever explored its limits. — Zora Neale Hurston

It was a weak spot in any nation to have a large body of disaffected people within its confusion. — Zora Neale Hurston

You got de keys to de kingdom. — Zora Neale Hurston

The inference is, that God has restated the superiority of the West. God always does like that when a thousand white people surround one dark one. Dark people are always "bad" when they do not admit the Divine Plan like that. A certain Javanese man who sticks up for Indonesian Independence is very lowdown by the papers, and suspected of being a Japanese puppet. — Zora Neale Hurston

Her resolutions against Jim Meserve were just like the lightning-bugs holding a convention. They met at night and made scorning speeches against the sun and swore to do away with it and light up the world themselves. But the sun came up next morning and they all went under the leaves and owned up that the sun was boss-man in the world. — Zora Neale Hurston

She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. — Zora Neale Hurston

She often spoke to falling seeds and said, "Ah hope you fall on soft ground," because she had heard seeds saying that to each other as they passed. The familiar people and things had failed her so she hung over the gate and looked up the road towards way off. She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie's first dream was dead, so she became a woman. — Zora Neale Hurston

I note that the Africa loves to depict the grace of reptiles. — Zora Neale Hurston

For what can excuse a man in the eyes of other men for lack of strength? — Zora Neale Hurston

Tea Cake, the son of the Evening Sun, had to die for loving her. — Zora Neale Hurston

De girl baby ain't born and her mama is dead, dat can git me tuh spend our money on her. Ah told yo' before dat you got de keys tuh de kingdom. You can depend on dat. — Zora Neale Hurston

She's got those big black eyes with plenty shiny white in them that makes them shine like brand new money and she knows what God gave women eyelashes for, too. Her hair is not what you might call straight. It's negro hair, but it's got a kind of white flavor. Like the piece of string out of a ham. It's not ham at all, but it's been around ham and got the flavor. — Zora Neale Hurston

Time makes everything old so the kissing, young darkness became a monstropolous old thing while Janie talked. — Zora Neale Hurston

The sun was gone, but he had left his footprints in the sky. It was the time for sitting on porches beside the road. — Zora Neale Hurston

Everybody is two beings: one lives and flourishes in the daylight and stands guard. The other being walks and howls at night. — Zora Neale Hurston

I made up my mind to keep my feelings to myself since they did not seem to matter to anyone else but me. — Zora Neale Hurston

Women forget all the things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. — Zora Neale Hurston

Naw, it's real. Ah couldn't stand it if he wuz tuh quit me. Don't know whut Ah'd do. He kin take most any lil thing and make summertime out of it when times is dull. Then we lives offa dat happiness he made till some mo' happiness come along. — Zora Neale Hurston

When God had made The Man, he made him out of stuff that sung all the time and glittered all over. Some angels got jealous and chopped him into millions of pieces, but still he glittered and hummed. So they beat him down to nothing but sparks but each little spark had a shine and a song. So they covered each one over with mud. And the lonesomeness in the sparks make them hunt for one another. — Zora Neale Hurston

So Janie waited a bloom time, and a green time and an orange time. — Zora Neale Hurston

I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions. — Zora Neale Hurston

Jump at the sun. You might not land on the sun, but at least you'll get off the ground. — Zora Neale Hurston

It is a curious thing to be a woman in the Caribbean after you have been a woman in these United States. — Zora Neale Hurston

She knew things that nobody had ever told her. For instance, the words of the trees and the wind. She often spoke to falling seeds and said, "Ah hope you fall on soft ground," because she had heard seeds saying that to each other as they passed. She knew the world was a stallion rolling in the blue pasture of ether. — Zora Neale Hurston

Love is lak de sea. It's uh movin' thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it's different with every shore. — Zora Neale Hurston

She sent her face to Joe's funeral, and herself went rollicking with the springtime across the world. — Zora Neale Hurston

Sometimes God gits familiar wid us womenfolks too and talks His inside business. He told me.how surprised y'all is goin' tuh be if you ever find out you don't know half as much 'bout us as you think yo do. It's so easy to make yo'self out God Almighty when you ain't got nothin' tuh strain against but women and chickens. — Zora Neale Hurston

Look lak she been livin' through uh hundred years in January without one day of spring. — Zora Neale Hurston

They plan and they fix and they do, and then some kitchen-dwelling fiend slips a scorchy, soggy, tasteless mess into their pots and pans ... So when the bread didn't rise, and the fish wasn't quite done at the bone, and the rice was scorched, he slapped Janie until she had a ringing sound in her ears and told her about her brains before he stalked on back to the store. — Zora Neale Hurston

Long before the year was up, Janie noticed that her husband had stopped talkin to he rin rhymes. — Zora Neale Hurston

De object wuz tuh git dere. So Ah got up on de high stool lak she told me, but Pheoby, Ah done nearly languished tuh death up dere. — Zora Neale Hurston

If it was so honorable and glorious to be black, why was it the yellow-skinned people among us had so much prestige? — Zora Neale Hurston

You have no idea, sir, how difficult it is to be the victim of benevolence. — Zora Neale Hurston

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place. — Zora Neale Hurston

Tain't no trouble tuh say whut's already so. — Zora Neale Hurston

The game of keeping what one has is never so exciting as the game of getting. — Zora Neale Hurston

But nothin' can stop you from wishin'. — Zora Neale Hurston

Please God, please suh, don't let him love nobody else but me. Maybe Ah'm is uh fool, Lawd, lak dey say, but Lawd, Ah been so lonesome, and Ah been waitin', Jesus. Ah done waited uh long time. — Zora Neale Hurston

There are years that ask questions and years that answer. — Zora Neale Hurston

The morning air was like a new dress. That made her feel the apron tied around her waist. She untied it and flung it on a low bush beside the road and walked on, picking flowers and making a bouquet ... From now on until death she was going to have flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything. — Zora Neale Hurston

Women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. They then act and do things accordingly. — Zora Neale Hurston

Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place. — Zora Neale Hurston

That was the rock she was battered against. — Zora Neale Hurston

Naw! Mah own mind had tuh be squeezed and crowded out tuh make room for yours in me. — Zora Neale Hurston

She was saving up feelings for some man she had never seen. — Zora Neale Hurston

The sun had become a light yellow yolk and was walking with red legs across the sky. — Zora Neale Hurston

you can't beat me and my prayers! — Zora Neale Hurston

Ah can look through muddy water and see dry land. — Zora Neale Hurston

For four hundred years the blacks of Haiti had yearned for peace. for three hundred years the island was spoken of as a paradise of riches and pleasures, but that was in reference to the whites to whom the spirit of the land gave welcome. Haiti has meant split blood and tears for blacks. — Zora Neale Hurston

And I can't die easy thinking maybe the menfolks white or black is making a spit cup out of you. Have some sympathy for me. Put me down easy, Janie, I'm a cracked plate. — Zora Neale Hurston

Pheoby's hungry listening helped Janie to tell her story. — Zora Neale Hurston

Why fear? The stuff of my being is matter, ever changing, ever moving, but never lost; so what need of denominations and creeds to deny myself the comfort of all my fellow men? The wide belt of the universe has no need for finger-rings. I am one with the infinite and need no other assurance. — Zora Neale Hurston

Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see. — Zora Neale Hurston

Just g'wan back home and set down on yo' royal diasticutis and say nothin'. — Zora Neale Hurston

Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches — Zora Neale Hurston

They, the men, were saving with the mind what they lost with the eye. The women took the faded shirt and muddy overalls and laid them away for remembrance. — Zora Neale Hurston

We, too, consider machine gun bullets good laxatives for heathens who get constipated with toxic ideas about a country of their own. If the patient dies from the treatment, it was not because the medicine was not good. — Zora Neale Hurston

Faith hasn't got no eyes, but she's long-legged. — Zora Neale Hurston

she received all things with the stolidness of the earth which soaks up urine and perfume with the same indifference. — Zora Neale Hurston

People ugly from ignorance and broken from being poor. — Zora Neale Hurston

On. Then Tea Cake would help get supper afterwards. "You don't think Ah'm tryin' tuh git outa takin' keer uh yuh, do yuh, Janie, 'cause Ah ast yuh tuh work long side uh me?" Tea Cake asked her at the end of her first week in the field. "Ah naw, honey. Ah laks it. It's mo' nicer than settin' round dese quarters all day. Clerkin' in dat store wuz hard, but heah, we ain't got nothin' tuh do but do our work and come home and love. — Zora Neale Hurston

The deeply satisfying aspect of the rediscovery of Zora Neale Hurston is that black women generated it primarily to establish a maternal literary ancestry. — Zora Neale Hurston

You heard me. You ain't blind. — Zora Neale Hurston

they read Hurston not only for the spiritual kinship inherent in such relations but because she used black vernacular speech and rituals, in ways Subtle and various, to chart the coming to consciousness of black women, so glaringly absent in other black fiction. — Zora Neale Hurston

Mind-pictures brought feelings, and feelings dragged out dramas from the hollows of the heart. — Zora Neale Hurston

Put simply, Hurston wrote well when she was comfortable, wrote poorly when she was not. — Zora Neale Hurston

Gods always behave like the people who make them. — Zora Neale Hurston

When the people sat around on the porch and passed around the pictures of their thoughts for the others to look at and see, it was nice. The fact that the thought pictures were always crayon enlargements of life made it even nicer to listen to. — Zora Neale Hurston

So I do not pray. I accept the means at my disposal for working out my destiny. It seems to me that I have been given a mind and will power for that very purpose. — Zora Neale Hurston

The present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell. — Zora Neale Hurston

The mediocre have no importance except through appointment. They feel invaded and defeated by the presence of creative folk among them. — Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston said fear is the greatest emotion and I said, 'No my dear sister.' Fear will make us move to save our own skins. Love also makes us save ourselves, but it will make us move to save others as well. — Sonia Sanchez

It seemed to me that the human beings I met reacted pretty much the same to the same stimuli. Different idioms,yes. Circumstances and conditions having power to influence, yes. Inherent difference, no. — Zora Neale Hurston

Now, Pheoby, don't feel too mean wid de rest of 'em 'cause dey's parched up from not knowin' things. — Zora Neale Hurston

Janie, Ah hope God may kill me, if Ah'm lyin'. Nobody else on earth kin hold uh candle tuh you, baby. You got de keys to de kingdom. — Zora Neale Hurston

Janie had spent most of the day under a blossoming pear tree in the back-yard. She had been spending every minute that she could steal from her chores under that tree for the last three days. That was to say, ever since the first tiny bloom had opened. It had called her to come and gaze on a mystery. From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds; from the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom. It stirred her tremendously. How? Why? It was like a flute song forgotten in another existence and remembered again. What? How? Why? This singing she heard that had nothing to do with her ears. — Zora Neale Hurston